Oswiecim, Camp of Death

CAMP

UNDERGROUND
POLAND SPEAKS

To be published soon b\
Polish Labor Group:

POLAND'S UNKNOWN SOLDIERS

The Underground Struggle of Polish Labor,
1939- 194 $

An illustrated and brief story of four and a halt years of the
constant struggle and unending suffering of the heroic Polish
Underground Labor Movement in its valiant resistance to the
Xazi invaders of Poland.

Based on eye witness reports, actual Underground statements,
and information taken from newspapers and magazines published
by the Polish Underground.

Sponsored by

LABOR LEAGUE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
(A. F. of L.)
and

NATIONAL C.LO. WAR RELIEF COMMITTEE

Published by

"Poland Fights"
Polish Labor Group
55 W. 42 Street
N, Y. 18, N, Y.

Sent free on request.

OSWIECIM — CAMP OF DEATH
( Un d ergr ound Rep or t )

Sponsored by

NATIONAL C.LO. AVAR RELIEF COMMITTEE

Permission is granted to quote from this publication or
reprint excerpts from it. The Publishers will gladly
grant permission to reprint the whole text upon request.

First Edition: March 1944

Cover by Teresa Zarnower

Copyright ip44 by

Poland Fights
New York, N. Y.

Sponsored by fi
American Friends of Polish Democracy
Published by
POLAND FIG PITS
55 West 42 Street, New York 18, N. Y.
Assisted by Polisli Information Center

FOREWORD

For more than four years, Poles — men, zvomen, and children,
old and young, of all classes and professions — haz'e been abused
and tortured with the utmost wantonness and brutality by the
German invaders of Poland. Whoever, today or in the future,
speaks of the travail of humanity during these grief-stricken and
tragedy-marred war years, must certainly pay humble and pro-
found tribute to the people of Poland w\ho have suffered at the
hands of the Gestapo, of despoiters of their culture and tradi-
tions, of economic bandits, and in the bestiality of prisons and 1
concentration camps.

"The Camp of Death" is the moving and almost incredible
story of Oswiechw concentration camp. The account was written
under the tension of the vibrant poignancy that is an inseparable
part of the miseries Poland has endured. It was written by a
Polish Underground Labor " 'historian," experienced in the under-
ground struggle, who drew his material from actual contact with
persons zvho underwent, and saw others suffer, the things that he
describes. As the zvriter says, "The Camp of Death" zvas to be
a compilation of the v-icioiisness of Nazism as seen at O.mnecim,,
so that all who read might understand and make a just evaluation
of that which Poland faces, of the problem of ridding all Europe
of a scourge that gives rise to such things as Oswiechn.

IVhile some wlio read this account may spend hours of unrest
and anguish when they think of it, this story, nonetheless , de-
serves reading, for it tells, only too well, that which might have
overrun Europe, and eventually the world, had it been altotved to
fester and spread without opposition.

In another sense, "The Camp of Death" is a memorial cut out
of the heart of living Poland. No one, of whatever race } creed j or
class, of whatever shade of political and social orientation, can
fail to see that the people of Poland have paid dearly for the

5

shortsightedness, selfishness, and lack of realism of the world.
There are others, not Poles — too many others — who have shared
a fate similar to that vwt at Oszviecim. This story is also a
memorial to them.

It should he the determination of everyone who reads this
pamphlet to prevent, as much as in him lies, future history from
repeating these last suffering years. As "For Your Freedom and
Ours" is a watchword of Polish democratic faith, so those who
have died at Osmiecim, mho have died in defiance of Nazism,
have died also "For Your Freedom and Ours."

Florence J. Harriman
Chairman, American Free World Ass'n.
Former U. S. Minister to Norway.

6

Friendly relations prevail among the various
national groups in the camp. The Poles and the
left wing Austrians and Chechoslovakians are on
the best terms with each other . . . On the whole,
the prisoners of various nationalities are getting
along well in the camp . . .

We must realize that the world is concerned
about Oswiecim not because it has served as a
prison for so many, nor because thousands of
people have already been murdered there, and no
one knows how many more may expect a similar
fate. Primarily, the world is concerned with
Oswiecim because of the moral problems it poses,
because, as the tragic symbol of Nazi domina-
tion over Europe and Nazi inhumanity, it pre-
sents in a nucleus the problems faced by the com-
munity of oppressed European nations.

From Wolnosc (Freedom), the oldest Polish
underground Labor paper, August 1943,

7

ft

Reproduction of cover page of "Oszinecim, Camp of Death,"
published underground in P-oJand

8

THE CAMP OF DEATH

(translated from Polish Underground Labor publication)

But Thou, oh Lord! who from on high

Send est Thine arrow's against the homeland's defenders

We beseech Thee 1 for the sake of this handful of bones!

Make the sun shine at least on our death!

Let the day come forth from the highest part of Heaven!

Let the world see us — when we are dying!

—Juliusz Slozuacki 1

C^SWIECIM concentration camp, Ausschwitz in German, has
for two years symbolized the sinister reality of Polish life under
German occupation. The shadow of Oswiecim falls over the
whole of Poland, for the most remote corners of the country
have yielded their sons and daughters to its torture chambers.

According to verified information up to July 1942, 125,000
persons passed through the camp, while, during all of the camp's
existence, barely 7,000 persons have been released. This figure
includes twelve persons who escaped or who were transferred to
other camps. At that time 24,000 men and women remained
alive. Consequently, 94,000 people have perished in Oswiecim.

In addition to Oswiecim, there are a series of other camps,
organized somewhat later : Tremblinka, Belzec, and others in the
past year in almost every administrative district. Life in any oE
these camps is an inferno equal to that of Oswiecim. However,
in Oswiecim, the methods of cruelty have been lowered to their
vilest depth, and applied in every form.

For a long time, complete secrecy shrouded the sufferings in
the camp. He who fell into its net kept its dreadful secrets with
him until his death. At first, a few letters from a prisoner would
come, short and strange because they were in German, according
to regulations; and censored by the Germans. The official words,

1 One of the greatest of Polish poets, lived from 1809-1849,

9

s.gns would come : clothes that were of no more use to their recent
owner; an official notification of the time of death; the query as

Freluentf V 3111 "/ <° ^ <* ** "

o t e 1 7 7 3 7 W0UW ' apSe between the ™^«n g

a r ™l n , f T Wnt ' en by the Pn50lrer ' S "™ Iland *»« the
a ml of hts death notice. Often, many months' silence would

fill he gap between the false hope of the letters written by a loved

one s hand, and the dreadful reality of the ashes sent in a tiny box

the P h,tlT'v eilth r ,iCeS , like the f0 " 0win S to appear in

he hated Nowy Kurrer WarszawsW; "The Requiem Mass for
the soul of the deceased will be celebrated tomorrow. The noti-

detaVes " ' **** "* ^ tbe arr ™> ° f *

Sometimes there would be a whole column of such notices bv
means of winch information was given about the end of some-

a betrayal of the Oswecm secret. A German prohibition banned
sue , notices and the word "ashes" ceased to appear in the old ,
anes, wh.ch then gave only the time of death, strangely remote
when compared with the date of the paper. It was ol from
such an mnocent and tardy notice that one could decipher where
the deceased had ended his days.

Though the Germans wished to hide their crimes completely
news began to leak out of Oswiecin, At first there we !
rumors, then more factual news, until the full secret of the ca „
was revealed, vcuujj

f~t Tf' n° Und . PUhB ^ have » containing

fragnxen of the Oswieam tragedy, To these, the following ma
eml collected by us can be added. Our public still does not
eahze what Oswiedrn is, We here, and the whole world, mus

have as complete a picture as possible.

Each detail has been scrupulously checked, coloring and strong

expressions have been eliminated to let the facts speak for them

' Polish language daily, published by the German authorities of occupation.

10

selves. Thus, one can see only the stark, dreadful truth of
Oswiecim's life, the truth about its sadism and torture, the sys-
tem of premeditated cruelty that crushes human bodies and souls.

The most terrible element to be found in these pages is perhaps
the fact that the camp system, in many cases, destroyed every
social tie in a victim and reduced his spiritual life to a fear-
driven desire to prolong existence, be it only for a day or for an
hour. These pages can easily be the most dreadful indictment of
the system that created Oswiccim. The truth is horrible, and
any doubt as to whether it should have been told was overcome
by the knowledge that we are fighting for the very existence of
our nation and must have a full knowledge of what the enemy
is like, his nature as fully expressed by Oswiecim.

11

MANHUNTS

A

«T* T the end of one of Warsaw's streets, two heavy trucks
stopped and cast strange shadows across the silent houses. Cars
that stop in Warsaw always provoke fear because it usually
means that either the Gestapo or the military police is at work.
This time there was an apparent mistake. Something had gone
wrong with one of the motors. A nondescript civilian climbed
out to look at the motor, while his companion in the second truck
alighted to help.

Suddenly the two drivers stopped fumbling with the motor,
with which nothing was wrong, and the trucks swung swiftly
across the road, blocking the intersection. The gap between the
trucks was filled by uniformed, armed Germans who had been hid-
den in the interiors, and who watched the milling crowd, mad with
fear, like hunters stalking game. People fleeing in the opposite
direction were cut off by another "human" dam built in the same
way and found themselves in one of the snares set that day on
the thoroughfares of Warsaw, the smaller streets, along the broad
avenues and in narrow alleys in Wola, Mokotow, Zoliborz . . .
in all the outskirts and in the very heart of the city.

The street cars, doubly filled because they had seemed to pro-
vide security, were stopped and surrounded - - smaller nets set
within the gigantic one, Grayish-green hunters went through
the cage-like, red street cars, dragging out men and pushing them
against the walls of neighboring buildings until, in a moment, hun-
dreds of frightened passersby, understanding nothing, were herded
together. No one knew the purpose of that day's hunt on the
streets of Warsaw; whether the Germans were after Polish
muscles or needed a gift from the occupied country for the farms
and factories of the homeland; or whether the elaborate traps
were only to ensnare and weaken the still-living Polish national
strength.

12

In the eyes of the trapped men there was anxiety, for they had
been cut off suddenly from their daily occupation, torn from their
homes. But there was still some hope because of the chance that
they might only have been taken to do temporary work in sub-
urban barracks, or on fortifications, and that, in a few hours or
days, they would be permitted to return home, A hope and a
determination to regain their freedom flared in their hearts, the
possibility of escape beckoned to them.

* * * *

Those who were caught in this first group on an August morn-
ing in 1940 did not then know that they were destined to be vic-
tims of Oswiecim j that they were to increase the still insufficient
numbers of the camp's "colonists," that they would return from
it en masse, though not all on the same day, as an official parcel
containing a handful of ashes. In the meantime, the Germans
loaded their immense human catch of thousands on trucks and
drove them toward Praga. 3 The rattling of the loaded cars was ac-
companied by the painful, and at the same time revengeful, sighs
of those who had escaped the traps. As they watched with fright-
ened eyes the dispatch of the victims, they saw tiny bits of paper
falling to the rnad from the trucks, thrown out furtively by the
prisoners, after scribbling hastily, "I was caught on the street,"
and the direction where the note should be delivered. As the
papers fluttered to the ground, people collected and delivered
them to their destination, to the families or friends of the men
who were to disappear.

In the large factory building on Skaryszewska street, where the
prisoners were first taken, some hoped to find freedom. An offi-
cer on duty explained nothing. He merely took the documents of
the passersby, who had been seized like criminals. To some the

3 Suburb of Poland's capital, part of Greater Warsaw, situated on the
Eastern bank of the Vistula River.

13

officer said, "Set free." To others, "Remain." In a few minutes
some had regained their freedom, as in the case of a street car
operator, a gas worker, or an hospital employee.

Whether a man was held seemed to be decided by his age,
whether he was young or mature; vigorous in appearance; and,
finally, by the whim of the hunter.

The day of the manhunt had been bright and warm. Therefore,
no one had bundled himself in warm clothing, or had an over-
coat, to say nothing of providing himself with food and a large
quantity of money — just to go out to get a package of cigarettes,
or to telephone from a nearby store, or to get medicine from the
drug store, or even to go to his office for a few hours.

As evening brought its usual coolness, the lightly-clad prisoners
became chilly, for many were even without socks — a wartime
fashion. Most had no coats. The examination of the men's docu-
ments lasted until the following day, while all night sleepy men
tossed about on the factory floor. With the second day came
thirst that clouded the mind, an impatient hunger in bodies al-
ready undernourished by ersatz food.

The final selection of the pre-determined number of victims
took place in a prewar riding academy on Lazienkowska street,
while the men shuffled back and forth through the manure that
covered the flooring. Finally, after more hours without sleep,
water, or food, the prisoners were loaded again into trucks, driven
to the railroad station, and jammed into cattle cars that were
immediately sealed.

* * * *

Poles gave the name "cops and robbers" to this unparalleled
kidnapping of innocent men — unparalleled even to the Germans—
from street cars, trains, cafes, and homes. But Polish obdurate
endurance was reflected in the lightness of the name, a poking of
fun at the enemy in the uneven struggle.

14

The next month, wdien the capital had recovered a little from
the first manhunt, a second one took place on a larger scale. It
became known as the "September'' hunt, and victims were taken
in the suburbs of Zoliborz, Kolonia Lubeckiego, and Wola. As
the first time, people were surrounded by machine guns and a
mob of armed beaters. People were dragged from their homes
or their places of work. The roundup extended to the Lublin,
Radom, and Kielce districts, and continued to spread, until it
embraced the entire country, now drained of its strength, to mark
new calendar pages with fresh, ghastly dates.

15

SIGNS OF LIFE

O N the outskirts of greater Warsaw, where the railway tracks
branch farther apart, a small hammer lies near the rails, its
broken handle bound with string.

An old worker returning from the night shift, taking a short
cut across the tracks because he is tired, ignores the hammer be-
cause its handle is broken. But a slip of colored paper, tied to
the end of the string, catches his attention, and he stoops and
picks up the broken hammer. The roll of colored paper becomes
a real five-zlotys note, and, unrolling it, he finds he has found
thirty zlotys. Outside of being worn, the old man realizes that
they are not counterfeit.

It seems like a strange joke. As he twists the hammer handle
in his hands, he sees that itdias been split deliberately. Unwinding
the twine, he pulls the handle from the head, and the shaft falls
in two, revealing a ho Ho wed-out groove out of which roll tiny
folds of paper. The old man opens one of them and reads:

"We implore the finder to deliver the attached notes at once
to the addresses given. We were caught yesterday on the streets of
Warsaw, and are being transported to some unknown place. Thirty
zlotys are enclosed for expenses. Please hurry. We dropped the
hammer out of a hole we made in the car."

The old worker is no longer in a hurry to get home. He squats
beside the roadbed and quickly arranges the messages. One is
for Praga, another for Powisle, then the Mokotow neighborhood,
next Zoliborz, and so on. 4 One would think the old man was
experienced in his job. Finished, he turns toward the city, boards
a street car, and starts on his task. He finds his way to many
homes — -some are spacious apartments, others are attics, base-
ments — but all are filled with the same anxiety. Although he

4 Suburbs of Warsaw.

16

is received as a messenger of life, there is always the fear that
he brings news of impending death, particularly if the victim is
headed toward Oswiecim.

As he continues his work, the old man grows tired, and other
people offer to deliver the remaining messages for him. But he
refuses, it is his job. He was chosen for it.

Along Aleja Szucha, in front of Gestapo headquarters, 5 there
is a milling crowd, and some of the people there are those who
received notes from the old worker. Others have been without
any word. But while all seek information, the Gestapo has the
same answer with variations: "Come back in a week. Come back
in a month." As days pass, the Oswiecim mail gives more in-
formation, via a letter from Schutshaeftling, 6 from number so
and so.

5 A new building where the Polish Ministry of Education bad its offices
before the war.

6 prisoner.

17

ON THE WAY

A

carpenter, seized with his fellow victims, had fashioned the
container that carried the messages found by the old man. He
had been seized while walking along a street in Powisle, with his
tool kit. The komm, komm of a German soldier and the blow of a
rifle butt had urged him into a truck jammed to capacity. While
he stood in the factory building in Skaryszewska, 7 and in the
riding academy, he had kept his tool box with him, and it was
still with him as he was jostled, in the midst of more than 100
others, while the freight car trundled toward Qswiecim.

Some had succeeded in dropping notes from the trucks into
which they were first herded, though none knew whether they
would be delivered. But the tiny ventilator in the roof of the
freight car was too small for a note to be pushed through it.

Some thought of the carpenter and his tools, and a hole was
drilled in the side of the freight car. Then the hammer was split
to hold the messages, tied, and dropped outside. After the ham-
mer was gone, the old tedium of the journey resumed. The slow
movement of the train showed that there were many other freight
cars, perhaps fifty. Though it was night, no one was cold, for the
closeness of the car, and the number of prisoners, pressed sweat-
ing bodies close to one another. No one stood or sat, but only
leaned against a fellow victim. Without light, sufficient air, rest,
food, or water, the torment was unbearable, except for the mys-
tery of where they were being taken. Now and then one could
guess that they were passing through a station, and knowledge
brought memories of other days, when one could get off the train
and buy lemonade and refreshments at the stations.

After forty-eight hours of this, bodies were completely worn
out, men's insides were tied in knots with hunger. Others were

7 One of the main streets of Powisle— part of Warsaw on the Vistula
River,

18

in agony for different reasons, for lack of relief, and there was
no sanitation. Therefore . . . After so many hours of this, the
hundred-odd men stood in a veritable stable, while the hot, stuffy,
stinking air was unbearable.

Before the human load had reached its destination, several per-
sons in every car had lost consciousness, and it was impossible to
revive them for there was no air. The doors were bolted on the
outside and the ventilators were too small.

The hours or days of the journey — it was difficult for the
prisoners to gauge the time — passed in torment and dragged on
like an inescapable, bad dream. All were mesmerized by the
constant clickcty-dack of the wheels, and the effort to avoid
thought, feeling, memories, and the future. In the torpor of the
ghastly overcrowded cars, men only endured.

Suddenly the train stopped in a deserted empty field, bordered
by a thin row of bushes. At the tail end of the train, three men
had succeeded in breaking open the heavy doors while the train
was in motion, in order to get fresh air. Dazed by it, almost
intoxicated, they tried to escape. The silence of the countryside
was broken by rifle shots. The three prisoners ended their escape
in a clump of bushes, their bodies nailed to the ground by bullets.
The train waited for more than an hour while the Germans
rushed to a nearby village, took three peasants from their chores,
drove them to the train and forced them into the same car from
which the three prisoners had attempted their escape to freedom.

The boys caught in the village had refilled the quota of victims
destined for Oswiccim. The locomotive resumed its panting.

19

GYMNASTICS

The new group of men brought to the camp shiver from the
cold. The last day of August is strangely rainy and gloomy
in the highland country of Poland. The desire for sleep, or at
least to stretch out, competes with hunger. After a two-days' jour-
ney in the unbelievably overcrowded cattle car, one's body de-
mands, at the least, a bundle of straw and a piece of bread. But
the regulations order several hours of gymnastics for the new
arrivals. The guards shout "run, run."

The men go in one direction, quickly, round and round a gravel
yard. The first lap warms their bare feet, but on the second they
begin to burn; the third produces the illusion of soft, green grass.
The burning becomes a sharp pain, for gravel scorches like the
cover of an immense, red hot stove.

"Run, run." At first the guards' fists force the men to succes-
sive laps. The blows from clubs force them farther. Each con-
tact (there arc ISO per minute) of the bare feet with the sharp
gravel blisters, pricks, and bites. The men look for smoother
islands on the stony sea of the yard. But no one may get out of
line. One of the running prisoners who steps out of the circle is
tripped by a guard. He lies there for a second until the per-
secutors force him to his feet, though he is bent with pain.

A prisoner, who is probably the oldest in the group that has
just arrived, lags. He would like to stop for a moment to rest
his bare feet from the increasingly terrible bruising of the sharp
rocks. A brutal blow of the club on his shoulders forces him to
run ahead. His heart pounds, little hammers thump in his temples,
eyes, and neck. Slowly his feet seem to become covered with
hard pads that increase, with each contact with the gravel, the
thousand-fold pricks of hot needles that are the stones.

The color of the stones changes slowly lo a pale pink. The
brown of the camp yard, rutted by the running, is dyed by drops

§

of blood that squeeze out of naked feet that pound on ceaselessly
The gravel and the feet take on the same coloring as the brown
of the stone is lightened by the red and purple of human blood,
and the pale rosin ess of the skin turns slowly to red. Still
the running in one direction continues. Every prisoner's body is
a bundle of throbbing nerves ; to breath is like plunging a long
blade into one's breast. To end it one must cease moving his
legs. But there is no end. Sometimes, the pointed stones dis-
appear, the reverberating bell of one's heart becomes silent, and
the hammers in one's head grow quiet. But, that is after a man
loses consciousness. A husky guard approaches the prisoner
slumped on the ground and stamps his heavy boot on the pris-
oner's chest. When this yields no result, the guard drags the
unconscious man to the pump and pours a stream of cold water on
his head. Or, as a savage method devised in the German school
of sadism, the unconscious man is brought to his senses by jam-
ming a stick into his mouth, and twisting it. To faint several
(inies does not save a victim from torture. He has to continue
running with bleeding feet on gravel that has become purple.

Einally, a new exercise is ordered: turning about as fast as pos-
sible. One sees the faces of his fellow inmates whirling about
and the red blocks of the barracks doing a dance. The dizziness
soon produces nauseousness and unconsciousness. It is restored
by the boots of the Nazi guards or by the stick. The "gymnas-
tics" are concluded by making the prisoners squat and remain
motionless. Tegs that are tired to the limits of endurance by
running now begin to tremble; the torn skin of bruised feet cannot
stand the weight of the body ; knees wobble. The guards roar with
laughter. It is a diabolically grotesque sight, these shaking legs,
and faces pale with pain and anger. A blow on the weakened
knees brings the victims to order. "Silence! Remain in the squat-
ted position." There is more of this, and more men faint, until
the prisoners go to dinner, leaving blood-stained marks on the
barrack floors and stairs.

There is nothing with which the prisoners can treat their feet
because the denim suits cannot be torn into strips. Some find a

piece of paper and use it for a bandage. But the blood soaks
quickly through the paper.

At the next day's "gymnastics," the wounds in the feet deepen.
The next day they begin to fester. The more ingenious and for-
tunate prisoners make a kind of sandle from bits of boards, scraps,
cardboard, and little pieces of string. But the wounds never heal.
They will slowly become fetid. Unclean traces will mark the
prisoner's steps until the end of his Oswiecim days. They will
become less visible because the pus has a grayish brown color.

22

WOUNDS NEVER HEAL

VJERMANS like to parade their sentiment for animals, par-
ticularly dogs. During requisitions in villages, they almost never
fail to stroke a strange, shaggy dog, or to give it lard taken
from a farmer. The same hands that, a moment ago, bayonetted an
unhappy peddler who was carrying a little sack of rye or potatoes,
stroke the dog that does patrol work. There are several such
pets in Oswiecim. One beautiful, big, wolf dog walks every day
with his Nazi master in the area between the barbed wire fence
of the main camp and the service buildings. The owner is young,
with a close-fitting, well-pressed, SS 8 uniform. His rosy com-
plex ioned face is usually smiling. The animal is well-trained,
obedient to every command. It walks at its master's heels, jumps
high when its master gives the proper sign with his hand, re-
trieves.

From inside the barbed wire fence detachments of prisoners
march to work far beyond the camp, while others work in the
service buildings, stables, cow sheds, rabbit cages, stock houses.
Every day, at a certain hour, a wagon of caskets is pushed by
prisoners from the main gate. The newly dead are being taken
to the crematorium. Later, the wagon returns with its caskets
ready for future use.

The dog and the master follow the daily camp sights atten-
tively. But, while the former seems to be satisfied, the man is
obviously bored by the monotony. Suddenly he sees an older
prisoner carrying a pail of water that weighs twenty-two pounds,
the man being barely a hundred pounds. He walks slowly with-
out trying to make the feverish effort demanded of him. Two
months ago, before his arrival at the camp, he weighed a hundred
and fifty. In a soft, commanding voice, the SS man gives the

8 Schutzstaffeln, in black uniform, Hitler's favorite Elite Guard.

23

animal an order, and the dog hurls himself at the prisoner and
sinks his teeth into the man's thigh. The prisoner drops the
pail and raises his hands instinctively to his face, screaming with
terror. Then the SS man calls the dog and, when he returns,
caresses his head.

Several times during the day this, and similar, performances
are re-enacted. The painful wounds caused by the dog's white,
gleaming teeth never have a chance to heal, and they fester for
months, as" does the smallest scratch.

In Oswiecim, wounds never heal.

A sudden, heavy shower clogs the camp sewer system, which
overflows into the camp yard. The water must then be drained
from the sewer by pail and the water dumped into another ditch.
About twenty prisoners jump into the water to do the work, but
their haste is not because the water is cold. Standing over them
are several SS men, and two other dogs. The prisoners, standing
in water up to their knees, are covered with the sweat of fear
that, when, the SS men become bored with watching the terror
develop in their victims' faces, they will urge the dogs on them,
The dogs are well aware of the "game." At a sign, they pounce on
the backs of the prisoners and grab at their throats. A split second
before the dogs sink their fangs into the flesh, the human beasts,
temporarily satisfied, call the dogs back, and pat therni in appre-
ciation. The excited dogs, barking loudly, wait impatiently for
a renewal of the game. No one of the prisoners knows whether
a "mistake" will occur and one of the dogs will drive his teeth
into a scrawny neck.

It takes "skill" to maintain this suspense of horror, to give
the order to the dogs at the right moment, for the dogs to charge
like wolves at their victims, and for the prisoners to literally die
from fear. Often, their pale, numbed bodies collapse under the
weight of the dogs, and the SS men shout with glee, and then
mil to the dogs. It goes on endlessly.

24

'ARBEIT MACHT FREI"
(Work Brings Freedom)

HERE is a large sign over the camp entrance with the words
Arbeit Macht Prei, (Work Brings Freedom), while from any spot
in the camp one can see the huge chimney of the crematory.
It is an ugly, brownish red.

A prisoner's life moves between these two points — the sign and
the chimney — -from the moment he "loses" his life when he
enters the camp until the moment he "regains" it as a bit of ashes
coming from the crematory.

Surrounding the camp for an area several miles in width are
cultivated fields from which the previous owners have been
evicted. Many farm buildings and workshops adjoin the camp
and its barracks. Scores of miles beyond the actual camp boun-
daries are the coal mines. All work, above ground or underground,
is done by prisoners. They till fields, build houses, mine coal,
load and unload trains. They produce goods of which only a part
is for the camp; the major share goes to the German Army.

Oswiecim's work is organized under a plan of its own. Every-
thing is at top speed, and the objective is as frequent a turnover
o[ labor as possible, The most important product of the camp
is the smoke from the red chimney because, bluntly, Oswiecim
is for the liquidation of lives. Until recently, it produced fifty
deaths a day. There have been days when the chimney could'
imt consume its enormous ration, and then bodies have been
buried.

* * + *

It is four a.m. Dawn. In a half -hour the gong at the gate
will sound reveille. But movement has already started in the
barracks. Prisoners have jumped from their pallets ahead of
time so as to order their mattresses, blankets, pull on their cloth-
ing, rush to the ever-occupied latrines, and splash themselves with

2S

a handful of cold water that is used by hundreds in succession.
All is done in great haste so as to avoid punishment for being
late, in order to have time to lap up a few mouthfuls from the
bowls, one to each three prisoners, to drink a portion of "coffee,"
and to rush into the yard for morning roll call.

Immediately after the roll call, the prisoners run to their prop-
er groups as commands are barked at them. Those assigned to
work at the sawmill stand near the gong; those to make con-
crete line-up near the middle barracks. In another spot are those
detailed for the manes; and farther away are those to work in
the fields. Every one moves as if he was going to a fire. In the
early days, when the camp was being organized, one group would
be detailed to cart sand from one place to another, and a second
group to cart it back to where it was dug. Then, as now, the point
was to keep the chimney smoking. Once accounted for, the pris-
oners leave the camp to the. strains of martial music. The rising
sun watches over thousands of prisoners marching to inevitable
doom. The setting sun will cast its rays over diminished ranks,

In the square of the camp is an unleveled rising, up which toil
men shoving wheelbarrows loaded with earth, one after the other,
like ants. There is a strangeness about the picture, for it is as
if the wheelbarrows had the life, as if the dirt was moving itself.
The real living are nothing but automatons, moving with stiff,
laborious efficiency. The arms that grasp the handles of the bar-
rows are like sagging wires. Swollen veins show on scraggly
arms. The stooped bodies seek relief from exhaustion. Half-
covered eyes can see only a short distance ahead through their
fatigue. Striding beside the endless line is an overseer who never
spares the use of the whip he carries constantly. "Do not lag!
Quicker!" is his cry.

It is a ghastly parade, each prisoner praying for strength to
reach the top of the slope, when the downward pitch will ease
his burden. If only he can take one, two, three, four . . . steps.
The wheelbarrow sways from side to side ; numbed and stiffened
hands clutch at the shafts. Suddenly, one barrow tips over and
its "driver" collapses. Then another follows the first, but the

26

overseer is only interested in driving on the remainder. The
"guilty" prisoners are beaten on the head and then the overseer
rushes on to keep his herd in motion.

One hour, two hours, eight hours and no let-up on the square,
which is slowly being leveled, and on which a synthetic rubber
plant will be built. The only discernible change is in the pris-
oners, for their fatigue becomes a vibrant pulsation that seems
to isolate itself in each part of their bodies.

During the day, the procession stops several times as a barrow
turns over, and a prisoner collapses, while clods of earth tumble
around a body that is no more alive, less alive, in fact, than the
earth. But — Arbeit Mac J it Prei — Work Brings Freedom.

* * * *

An overseer reports 150 men leaving to dig potatoes. The SS
man checking the count sneers. It is a strange detachment. Its
marching is unaffected by the camp band as it moves out into the
field. Heads loll, eyes are almost blind, bodies sway. They are
like shadows, pitching one way and then another.

The group has been assigned to "light" work and, as light
work calls for less food, "light" rations are issued to them. The
camp torture and their work has helped to make them semblances
of humanity. These men have lost from 4-5 pounds every few
days.

Under normal circumstances, they would have been put in beds
long ago, but now they go to dig potatoes. Thus Oswiecim elicits
the last bit of strength from its victims. Clubs swing through
the air to improve the marching of the men. Many of the pris-
oners must crawl on the ground out of weakness. Bony hands
are the sole motive power for many whose legs are without
strength, as they move from one hill to another. When two fall
over, the overseer leaps at them and shouts, "Do not sleep." But
he does it without meaning, for he knows that the entire con-

27

tingent will change soon, for it is the group in the process of
being "finished off" on its way to the chimney. .

The number of prisoners who arrived recently at Oswiecim is
over 30,000. The average camp population is 10,000. Perhaps
2,000 have returned to the world, leaving about 18,000 human
beings whose epitaph is the three words inscribed over the gate,
written daily in the smoke from the crematory.

28

NIGHTS GRANT NO RELIEF

T

1 HE straw that has been threshed a hundred of times by twist-
ing prisoners is now only chaff. One mattress "supports" at
least two prisoners. Frequently, there is a third. One paper-thin
blanket covers each two bodies, gripped with cold and trembling
with fatigue. Over everyone is a blanket of darkness in which
pain, anxiety, nostalgia, and fear lose their identity. Sleep would
help if it could come, but only whispers provide a break in the
constant torture of work and punishment, and the whispers are
devoid of human relationship. They provide only a nightmarish
liaison between still-living bodies. One whisperer is a former
exile to Siberia under the Czarist regime. He speaks of a pris-
oners' revolt, when a fellow inmate was beaten by a guard ; about
the ensuing trial; the legal defense; the verdict; the work on the
deportees' own land that they received in Siberia. His tale falls
flat, Now and then one of the prisoners laughs or interrupts with
a brutal "Shut up." After all, a story of prisoners' conditions
under Czarist deportation is not to be compared to Oswiecim.
The whisperer's tale is for children.

The Stubenfuehrer, or supervisor of his fellow inmates, snarls
for silence from his bed on the table. Sometimes he allows the
whispering to continue, for even, he would like to listen to an
interesting tale as a means of hiding the spectre of Oswiecim and
to assuage his debased soul, sold for better food and a more com-
fortable bed. During the day, he tortures the prisoners who are
left at his mercy.

More whispering" begins and the Stubenfuehrer lifts his head
and listens so quietly that the whispering becomes more audible.
A ship is being sailed on an i immense ocean to an unknown land.
Widespread treetops with strange foliage rustle high over the
heads of the prisoners. The stars of a foreign sky look down on

2S,

them in unknown patterns. All the humor and sadness and
strangeness of years ago are blended into a prisoner's life. It is
the story of an Argentinian argosy, soon to be released — Arbeit
Macht Fret — from Oswiecim. With a higher fever than usual,
lie resurrects his past in beautiful prose. The silence is filled with
poignant visions of beauty, freedom, and fulfillment, rapturous
dreams of distant echoes. Suddenly the silence is broken by the
wailing from a mattress nearer the window, where a young boy
lies.

Today he had been flogged publicly twenty-five times with a
massive rawhide whip. The measured blows had cut his skin many
times, torn his muscles, and had driven bits of clothing into the
wounds. Hs back is now a mass of festers. Feverish and restless,
he constantly rolls off the mattress, bumping his fellow prisoners,
first left, then right.

"Sleep, boy, sleep," someone calls to him, "He had enough
sleep during roll call. That was enough for him/' a voice answers.

Returning from work, where he had been unloading 165-lb.
bags of cement from a freight car, he had looked as though he
would die on the spot. Somehow, he dragged himself to the camp
and there he had laid down to sleep beside a shed. He will moan
until dawn, but he will respond to the morning roll call, and re-
turn to the station to unload freight cars. His unspoken wish is
that he might die, while sleep is impossible because of the memory
and the fear brought by the flogging.

From the mattress near the prisoners' lockers one can hear a
constant shuffling sound, made by a man nicknamed the "engineer."
He is moving his hands up and down in an attempt to drive the
numbness from his dislocated shoulders, the result of being sus-
pended from the "post" the previous day. His punishment was
for smoking during work. Sentenced to two hours suspension, the
first hour had been expiated the previous Sunday, and, for a
week, he had not slept as a result. Now, the second hour had
been "fulfilled," But it is not only the numbness and tormenting
pain that racks his body. He is choked inwardly with rage at his
own impotence, debasement, and, above all, the senselessness of

30

the condition of himself and those about him. He breathes softly
while he continues to move his hands back and forth, up and down,
thus driving away what scant sleep there is in this Oswiecim
barrack.

"Turn over," calls a prisoner, as he pokes his neighbor in the
back, so that he will have room to turn over. The room is so
crowded that, when one prisoner moves to relieve the stiffness of
lying in one position, almost everyone else has to move.

It is not difficult to identify the sounds in an Oswiecim bar-
rack, from the rhythmic groaning that accompanies the pain of
festered wounds, to the constant scratching of itching scabs that
goes on under the blankets, to the impatient sighing because of
the ever-present fleas and lice despite the systematic "lice hunts"
ordered officially by the camp authorities.

There are other sounds : a body creeping across other bodies,
the swearing of those who are trampled upon, the patter of feet
on the bare wooden floor near the door — a body racked by dysen-
tery, which is endemic in the camp, or one suffering from a
kidney trouble and forced to make endless trips to the latrine.
The shabby substitute for sleep is a fitful dozing that brings neither
forgetfulness nor relaxation.

Even the nights at Oswiecim grant no relief.

31

BASEMENTS AND LOFTS

In the corner of the rectangle formed by the barracks is the
penal barrack. It is built in the same style as the others, rem-
iniscent of Austrian days, when they housed regiments of the
Imperial Royal Artillery, the same style in which new ones have
been built by prisoners. There are the same dreary-looking red
walls, and plain, box-like shapes. Actually, the penal barrack is
a double building, connected by a wall, which is the major devia-
tion from the general architecture of the camp. The second is
the row of tiny windows, set just above the foundation, that look
out on the world with a gloomy, mysterious appearance. They
are the eyes of the underground, dark cells from which one never
returns.

On one particular day, there is unusual activity in the penal
barrack, for it is moving day. The entire penal group, about
300 men, is being moved upstairs in the neighboring, newly-built
block. Serious cases are being taken to the hospital. There arc
many guesses about what is happening, from the hospital being
expanded to the complaint that "it's about time because it is over-
crowded." The bustle around the barrack continues into the
night, but all one can hear is the crunching of feet on the gravel,
and the sounds of steps filtering down and vanishing into the
basement: a new detachment of prisoners, 500 Russians. Thus,
in addition to its Polish backbone, Oswiecim has appendages —
Czechs, Germans, Jews, Serbs, and now Russians.

The question is why these last should be placed with the gravely
ill, for they cannot be sick if they came in by their own strength.
No prisoner in the other barracks tries to sleep, for all listen to
what is happening in the suddenly emptied and as suddenly re-
lilled penal barrack.

There is a brief pause between the sounds of shuffling feet and
the outbreak of inhuman cries that penetrate into the night from

32

out of the tightly closed windows. There is fear in the cries,
but the ears of listening prisoners, well-versed in the art, can
distinguish the cries of pain from those of fear, and from those
of despairing resignation. The performance is repeated several
times and the crescendo of cries rises. Then there is silence, an
ominous silence that spreads around the double barrack. In the
ensuing daylight, the silent barrack seems like a huge slab over
an immense grave.

For three days, nothing breaks the silence of the barrack. The
fourth night, the gravel again crunches under the pressure of
wheels. Trucks drive up to the barrack to remove the clothing
that had recently been on seriously ill Polish prisoners brought
tc the hospital, and those taken from the Russian prisoners-of-
war. The camp suits and the uniforms are sent to the camp
warehouses. Soon, the load changes to naked bodies piled high
between the sides of the carts that, beyond the gate, move toward
the crematorium.

It is a five-minute walk from the camp yard to the crematorium,
but the prisoners pushing the cars are in even a greater hurry to
discharge their burdens. But the work goes on for a long time in
the task of shifting the "loads" from the penal barrack to the
red chimney.

The feeble moonlight is a ghastly spotlight for the piles of
stiffened features and livid flesh. One cart, unevenly loaded,
overturns, and, for a minute, the corpses seem to regain life as
they leap over one another and roll down the embankment, waving
their stiffened arms, coming to rest in a scattered mass. The
"prisoner ghouls" work feverishly to reload the cart in the fast
waning darkness of the night. Before they finish, sudden dawn
brings out the strange., greenish pallor of the dead. Oiie prisoner,
who has grabbed a corpse by the arm, stops suddenly and stares
for a long time into its face. Years ago he had seen another like
it, in an abandoned trench, with the same spectral appearance.

It is the mark of poison gas.

No one emerges alive from the darkness of the underground
cells to tell a word, and yet, in the first bit of dawn, the secrcl

33

of 800 dead men filters through, A trip to Oswiecim, a flight of
steps into the "underground/' and death by gas.

j|s % ajt; i(«

The detachment of prisoners detailed to weed beets spreads
over the field, their fingers moving among the young plants. The
monotony of their work is broken occasionally by a train passing
in the distance, moving from one horizon into another. For a
moment, as the prisoners watch the disappearing train, they pull
beets and weeds, but the threat of punishment from the overseer
soon drags them back to attention to their labors, back from a
vision of freedom to the earth.

On one day, a train appeared bearing wounded soldiers. The
sight of the bandaged heads, arms, and legs of German soldiers
caused a sudden fever to course through the men. They leaped
up, clenched their fists, and shouted at the top of their lungs with
a hope that burst their hearts.

The enraged and frightened overseer, unable to understand
what motivated the prisoners, leaped at them, yelling for his
assistant. Between the two of them, they quelled the riot, and,
in the process, beat five men to death. The remainder were
ordered back to the camp, sixty half -conscious prisoners, who
were sent to the penal building, where their last, strange joy had
its ending.

* * * *

Over the penal barrack is a loft in which arc tiny windows.
The semi-darkness barely reveals the outlines of posts that sup-
port the roof, from each of which a man is suspended. It is the
"post." The victims jerk violently as they seek relief from being
chained by the wrists to hooks driven into the posts. Their feet
just miss the floor. Their arms, bent backwards, at the small of
the back, sag under the body's weight and slowly dislocate at the
shoulder joints. There is not a vacant post in the loft.

Each motion to relieve the pressure on the wrists, or in the
shoulders, tends to increase the pain throughout the body. Each
effort to rest one's feet on the floor multiplies the agony.

This is Oswiecim's "Golgotha," which takes place on Sundays.

34

As in the case of the "engineer," the weekly installments of this
form of torture is based on the same principle that makes Os-
wiecim torture a prisoner, sentenced to death, for a year after
sentence has been passed.

The worst of it is that, after the "post" is over, there is no
place for the prisoner to rest, for regulations forbid sleeping in
the daytime. Therefore, a victim must drag his torn, pain-
wracked body about the camp yard, lean against a barrack wall,
or stretch out on the. sharp gravel. At night, the thin mattresses
are no relief from the hardness of the floor. The next morning he
will return to work.

"Crimes" that lead to the post are anything from smoking dur-
ing work, to hiding from work during a rain storm, to stealing
bread, to speaking out of turn at roll call.

35

ESCAPE

T HE ominous wailing of the siren can be heard for miles around
the camp as a warning that a prisoner has escaped. It is also
a knell of death for the remaining prisoners, for the camp rule is
that ten prisoners are put to death for every escaped prisoner.

When the siren calls, all must report to the courtyard for roll
call. There the men stand, paralyzed with fear, eyes searching
up and down the rows to find who is missing. It is a weird hope
against hope that the escaped prisoner is not from "their group.
Suddenly, the searching eyes discover a gap in one line. From
the others comes an audible sigh of relief. From the line in
question, there is new anxiety. However, no one knows whether
the little man who once filled the gap has escaped or is dead,
and so the fear remains.

The prisoners stand motionless for one, two, three hours. From
the west, dark clouds approach with the night. Noon meals,
sleep, everything passes by, while the wind tears at the flimsy
prisoner suits, made from wood fibre. The round caps on the
prisoners' heads are scattered around the yard. Backs ache, legs
grow numb, cold and fear do the rest. Suddenly, men begin to
wave their arms, move their feet, shake their heads, until a mass
convulsion sweeps through the ranks. It stops as soon as it be-
gins, for the overseer has turned back to watch the ranks. Those
who were unlucky enough to gain a second's respite will watch
more closely for their next chance.

Now and then a body falls to the ground, and one prisoner is
no longer concerned with whether he will or will not be one of
the ten, although he has become the eleventh — or the first. Since
no one may move him, his body grows stiff in the wind, cold,
and rain of a twenty-four hour vigil. Other bodies collapse and
lose interest in the death watch. Finally, the camp commandant
appears, and strides up and down the ranks. He moves silently,

36

while the eyes of the prisoners watch his coming and going. Each
prisoner straightens himself with a tremendous effort, sticks out
his chest, and raises his head when the commandant's eyes fall
on him,.

Komm! falls the verdict. A last effort comes from, the victim
as his feeble body tries to convince the German of his powers of
endurance. Komm! It sounds again and the prisoner's body
deflates abruptly.

The commandant's eyes and legs move on. Each time he
beckons, there is a sigh of relief from the remaining prisoners.
"It is not I," the sighs say. One lone cry says "It is I,"

The ten are marched to the basement of the penal building.
Though the camp law provides for their release if the escaped
prisoner is found in three days, the prisoners know it is a useless
bope. Even if the prisoner returns, both be and the hostages
will die.

Oswiecim knows no resurrection.

* * * %

Near the highway twenty prisoners are wrecking a building.
Some of them smash in the front walls with crow bars, others
cart away the debris, a few pile the usable lumber. The overseer
is visibly satisfied, for the men are new and do not, as yet, know
the tricks of faking work. OMy one behaves "normally." He
always appears at a different hole in the wreckage carrying the
same piece of lumber. The overseer knows what he is doing and
watches carefully so that the prisoner soon becomes completely
emboldenecl. After putting down his load, he disappears, but the
overseer watches his scrawny body wriggling itself under a pile
of rubbish. There is a moment's wait, and then the German raises
his voice in a hoarse shout : "He has escaped. Look for him,"

The other prisoners, moved by a mixture of fear and rage that
one of them should have "endangered" the lives of the others,
dig furiously in their search. The overseer, in the guise of beater,
directs the men in one direction and then another, always careful
to keep up the suspense, but meanwhile moving the men slowly
in the direction of the "escaped" prisoner.

37

Then a prisoner discovers the half-hidden body and strikes at
it with a crow bar. <£ Do not hit me. You have found me. I
won't escape again." But the words are unheeded as one pris-
oner after another struggles to strike a blow, whether it lands on
head, chest, arms, or legs. The overseer is pleased immensely
with his game, until he realizes that it will end abruptly. "Stop
it!" he calls, but too late. A blow on the prisoner's head ends
his struggling, and Oswiecim's "guests" have demonstrated that
they do not encourage another to bargain with their lives as the
price of his freedom.

One man escaped as far as beyond the "tenth mountain, the
tenth river," and was re-captured. He had learned again to
breathe easily, to again believe in, and have a desire for, justice,
goodness, truth, but they found him in the home of friends after
two months had passd.

His return to the camp is a triumphant solemnity. He is
dressed in his best Sunday clothes. On his chest is a placard with
the inscription: "Hurrah! I'm back with you!"

The whole camp looks on excitedly and the prisoners race
around to find vantage points from which to see the "prodigal."
There are even shouts of joy because the man's fellow-inmates
know that it is not they who will gather the harvest of the two
months' "vacation."

The man's face is chalk -white under a ludicrous jockey cap,
looking like a clown's mask. Drums beat a welcome tattoo that
will soon become a leave-taking. The procession winds through
the camp and finally reaches the penal building. Then the crowd
of prisoners disperse for the roll call to ascertain that no one
else is missing.

The muffled report of a rifle volley breaks the evening silence.
The matinee "idol" has made his last exit.

38

THE IMPATIENT ONES

n

NE may suffer from nauseous hunger, flaccid muscles, frozen
fingers and toes for many months. Each day one may re-live
the beatings he has received and the torture of work. One may
even forget what part of his body is still healthy — relatively
speaking — and also forget the dirty wounds. Life can become so
unimportant that a man may steal a piece of bread from a dying
man without the slightest twinge of conscience, or whine fruit-
lessly, after leaving the hospital, for a larger share of a mattress.
Finally, one may be constantly suffocated with fear, debasement,
and helplessness — all this — and still want to live.

And then a letter may arrive from home containing a mis-
understood word, misunderstood by the camp authorities, and it
will be the cause of the final, bitter drop in the cup of a tortured
soul, and will poison the faint will to exist in a man's breast.
If will be the last straw, and what was a mere trifle will be the
beginning of a desire for the end . . . just as a tree may stand
against the worst hurricanes and the most vicious weather, and
finally topple under the pressure of a gentle breeze.

But, of course, in Oswiecim, it is difficult to keep one's balance.

The worst thing there is not the unending struggle against
death. Nor is death the greatest fear. Many do not try to
defend themselves against it, though, for some, death may escape
being caught, even though it is pursued.

The camp is surrounded by strands of barbed wire. Several
yards in front of this wire is a single strand, on which there is
a sign marked "Halt !" This is a warning to those who would
cross their Rubicon. At night, a high, wired fence is electrified,
while, day and night, the camp is guarded by men in towers set
at intervals around and outside the single strand of wire.

Sometimes, usually at the meeting of night and day, a pris-
one will steal down a barrack stairs and run toward the fence.

39

ignoring the "halt" warning. Fixing his eyes on the silhouette of
the guard, he will walk toward the barbed wire. In the prisoner's
face is a determination to let the guard know what he is doing,
that he is trying to escape. But it has another expression— ai
despairing plea for death. "Riddle me with bullets. Kill me!"
The man runs alongside the barbed wire, for there is no use in
touching it as dawn has come and the current is gone. As he
approaches the second tower, bullets hit him in the arm. Stream-
ing blood, he runs on, faster, toward the third tower. There the
machine gun is more merciful, and he is hit in the chest.

Still, death does not come, until the bullets strike him again,
and again, and the "released" prisoner topples against the barbed
wire. On his face there is neither plea nor audaciousness.

Nothing but the relief of death.

Note: Excerpts of this pamphlet have been published in Free World Mag-
azine, March, 1944 by special permission of Poland Fights.

40

ANNEX :

NETWORK OF SLAVE CAMPS IN POLAND

The existence of over a hundred concentration camps in occu-
pied Poland has been verified by the Polish Underground through
special surveys conducted under the very eyes of the Gestapo.
Their exact number and location is a secret guarded closely by
the occupation authorities. However, the Underground has suc-
ceeded in compiling lists of the most important camps in Poland
and of camps in the Reich proper where Polish prisoners are kept.

The list is still far from complete. New camps are being estab-
lished constantly, who.se locations the Germans keep secret, espe-
cially the youth camps, the so-called "Camps For the Correction
of Youth," and the camps for children, the Nazi "FJducational
Institutions," where Polish children under 12 are brought up as
Germans, These children's camps are usually located deep in
Germany.

"Camp Districts"

Certain localities in Poland have been selected by the invader
as especially suitable for the establishment of concentration
camps. In such areas there are often two or three camps, only
several miles distant from each other. Some sections, where the
number of camps is very great, may be called "camp areas." The
former populations of these "areas" have been moved elsewhere.

Each camp, separated from the outer world by barbed wire
often charged with high voltage, has its own German commandant
and governing staff, German guards, and firing squads. Regula-
tions vary according to the type of camp.

The camps known to the Polish Underground are in these
categories :

Temporary Concentration Camps

In these, newly arrested Poles are kept until they are classified
and sent to the regular camps for permanent imprisonment. The

43

time spent m these "transient 51 camps varies from several days to
a few months. The regime is especially bad, the treatment de-
liberately brutal, aiming to kill the greatest possible number of
prisoners. The survivors are sent to other camps. There are nine
of these temporary concentration camps known to the Under-
ground :

Augustow I
Dzialdowo I
Inowroclaw

Ronstantynow, near Lodz (special camp for the victims of

deportation)
Lodz I

Majdanek I (near Lublin)

Myslowice, in Silesia (which has a very large women's divi-
sion)
Sosnowiec I
Tarnovv T

General Concentration Camps

These are for Poles condemned to long terms of imprisonment,
which usually mean life, for very few emerge alive, Frequently!
release from one camp merely means transfer to another, often
from one in Poland to one in Germany. The Polish Underground
has found twenty-four such camps. One of the oldest and most
notorious is that at Oswiecim, which has recently been greatly
expanded by the addition of the entire area of "the village of
Rajcza. A section of this camp has been converted into the
so-called "camp of death."

The following camps have been checked by the Underground :
Augustow J I
Ciechanow
Dobrzyn

Dyle (near Bilgoraj)
Dzialdowo II
Dziesiata (near Lublin)
Grudziadz

42

43

Jaslo

Kolctyczewo (near Baranowicze)
Lodz

Majdanek II

Nasielsk

Oswiecim

Pelkinia

Plonsk

Potulice I (near Naklo)
Pomiechowek I
Rajsko (near Oswiecim)
Sierpc

Sosnowiec II
Tarnow II

Treniblinka I
Trawniki (near Lublin)
Camp near Wloclawek
Camp near Cbelm
The Underground investigators have thus far verified the pres-
ence of Poles in thirteen camps in the Reich :
Buchenwald
Dachau
Flossenburg

Gross-Rosen (near Breslau)

Gusen

] T am burg

Ilohenbrueck

Labiawa (in Eastern Prussia)

Matbausen

Oranienburg

Ravensbrueck

Stutthof (near Danzig)

Sachsenhausen (near Berlin)

44

Forced Labor Camps

At the height of the mass deportations of the Polish agricul-
tural population, the Germans organized a new kind of camp,
to which the dispossessed peasants were sent. The larger camps
of this type are:

Potulice II

Starogard I

Tremblinka II

The Nazis have also set up a network of "small" camps for
forced labor, one or two in nearly every district. These camps
number more than sixty.

The district camps are supervised by the Gestapo and are sub-
ject to the Nazi district leader, the Kreishauptman. The slight-
est misdemeanor on the part of a Pole is punishable by confine-
ment in one of these camps, which are ruled even more arbitrarily
than the larger general camps.

Concentration Camps for Clergy

Great numbers of the clergy are sent to the general camps, but
there are also special camps for them :
Bojanowo

Konsfanynow II (near Lodz)

Camp near Danzig (the name could not be ascertained)
There are several other camps for the clergy in the Reich,

Concentration Camps for Women

Nearly every concentration camp has a women's division. One
of the largest is at Oswiecim, Polish women are also sent in
great numbers to the large German camp for women in Ravens-
brueck, in Mecklenburg. The Bojanow and Konstantynow camps
have special divisions for nuns.

Concentration Camps for Jews

Those camps have been established in conjunction with I lie
Nazi campaign to liquidate the European Jews. Some of them
are simply places of execution where Jew's from Poland and the

45

rest of Europe are asphyxiated, electrocuted, and machine-gunned.
The most notorious of these are ;
Belzec

Sobibor, near Wlodawa
Tremblinka III
Six other camps for Jews are located in :
Starogard II
Potulice III
Kosow Podlaski
Trawniki
Pomiechowek II

Between Chelm and Wlodawa (the name could not be ascer-
tained)

In these camps, too, the Jews are murdered, but mostly by
starvation, disease, torture, and forced labor.

Camps for "Improvement of the Race"

There are several of this type, mostly in the Reich proper.
Their names and locations are kept in strict secrecy. Thus far,
only one such camp has been located. in Poland by the Under-
ground, the camp in Helenow, near Lodz. Upon the proposal
of the "scientists' group" of the Nazi Party of the Lodz district,
an experimental camp for the "improvement of the Nordic race"
was established there in the summer of 1941.

The Helenow camp sets itself the goal of raising the standards
of the Nordic racial type to the ideal conceived by the Nazi "race
scintists." When the camp was first opened, several score of
young German boys and as many German girls between the ages
of 15 and 18 were brought there. Preliminary activities were
begun; playgrounds, classrooms, a swimming pool, and a hall
were built. Many small cabins were erected, each to accommodate
two persons. About the same time, many Polish families in the
districts of Lodz and Poznan lost their young sons and daughters,
all of them of excellent physical constitution, blue eyes, and
so-called "Nordic" characteristics.

Boys and girls, captured in the streets or on trains, arc taken

46

to Lodz, where they undergo a thorough medical examination.
Those in whom the slightest physical defect is discovered are sent
home. The others are given a series of inoculations, after which
they are once more examined by doctors. They are then taken to
Helenow and separated according to age and sex groups.

Couples have been settled in every cabin in the camp : German
boys with Polish girls, and Polish boys with German girls.

The food situation in the camps is excellent, unlike that in
the rest of occupied Poland. There is meat every day, milk, fresh
fruit, much white bread and vegetables. Despite the long camp
curriculum, life there would seem relatively free and pleasant :
the Germans and the Poles are given equal treatment. The only
duty that is absolutely enforced is the regular performance of
sexual intercourse with the partner assigned. The compliance
with this duty is under the constant control of the camp physi-
cians, and any failure in this respect is punished severely. There
were several attempts at suicide among the Polish girls. There is
a constant turnover in the camp. Mothers-to-be are sent to Ger-
many. What the future holds for these girls is clear.

Camps for "Correction of Youth"

There is little information as to the number, location, and con-
ditions in these camps. The t»dy thing known is that there are
several of them in Poland and in the Reich. Their inmates are
Polish boys and girls.

Concentration Camps for Children
So-Called "Educational Institutes"

Polish children under 12 are seized in great numbers and sub-
jected to the Nazi process of Germanization. For this purpose
they are deported to special camps, called "Educational Institutes."
There are separate camps for children under 6; camps for chil-
dren between 6 and 9 ; and, recently, camps for the group between
9 and 12. Prior to deportation, the children are examined care-
fully by doctors. The weakest children, instead of being returned
to their parents, are left in the care of the local communities.

47

Sometimes they are killed outright. A report smuggled oat of
the Oswieam camp in December 1942 states:

"Boys and girls over 12 are included in the groups of regular
prisoners. When children under 12 are brought to the camp,
they are not admitted, but murdered on the spot."

Healthy and physically well-developed children are sent to con-
centration camps in the Reich. The number and location of these
camps are not known, for the Germans surround them with the
greatest secrecy. However, the great numbers of children sent
into Germany continually indicate that these "educational estab-
lishments" are very numerous.

48

P 0 L AH D FI GH T S

n (hi i nightly bullel in

published by

POLISH LABOR GROUP
American Representative of the
Polish Underground Labor Movement
(Polish Socialist Party & Trade Union Congress)

For further information about Poland and the Polish Under-
ground, read the following publications :

PROGRAM FOR A PEOPLE'S POLAND
MANIFESTO TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD
UN CONQUERED POLAND

POLISH WORKER'S DAY IN OCCUPIED WARSAW
POLISH LABOR FIGHTS ON
POLISH LABOR FACES WORLD PROBLEMS
POLISH LABOR'S UNDERGROUND PRESS
BATTLE OF WARSAW GHETTO
EXTERMINATION BY STARVATION
UNDERGROUND VOICE OF POLISH TEACHERS
TOWARD POLISH-SOVIET UNDERSTANDING
SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF THE PREWAR POLISH

POLITICAL STRUCTURE
WORKMEN'S PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION IN POLAND
AGRARIAN REGIME OF PREWAR POLAND
PATTERN OF UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE
PEACE PLANNING FOR CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
EDUCATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE
INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF ADULT EDUCATION
ADMINISTRATIVE MAP OF POLAND UNDER GERMAN

OCCUPATION

All publications free. Address requests to Poland Fights, Room 1125,
55 West 42 Street, New York 18, N. Y.

1

"Poland Fights," 55 West 42 Street. Mm tmk IK N. Y.